This disturbs me.

So I was listening to my NPR station this morning. I heard NPR's news at midnight, and then the station switched over to the BBC's World Service, since it's almost a reasonable hour over there.

NPR reported that [the U.S. Gov't said] the raised (orange) terror alert in NY and NY, the sting operation in NY(mosque, money laundering, shoulder-launch thingy, Pakistani ambassador hypothetical asassination attempt), the raids in the U.K., and the seizure of a computer in Pakistan were unrelated. It was also reported that threats to Heathrow Airport were not serious.

In contrast, the BBC reported that the events were related, and in fact that some key pieces of information about the possible attacks on NY/NJ financial buildings came from that very seized Pakistani hard drive. Also that the threat to Heathrow was serious and that in the last year tanks had been posted around Heathrow.

Now, I'm not really sure what's going on. Is NPR just repeating what the government is saying? Is our government lying to us so badly then? Or is the BBC slanted/inflammatory? Are the standards of journalistic integrity really that different across the pond? What's going on here?

I should add that I have noticed that the BBC doesn't seem to make some of the same efforts to appear impartial that the American press does. For example, in the same program they had a discussion of "Bushisms" titled: Maladroit President Bush Puts his Foot In It Again (or something). On the other hand, they interviewed an intelligence specialist with the Washington Post.

But, I mean, the two reports were 20 minutes apart. It's not like the story evolved and changed in that time. I'll have to see what the American press is saying tomorrow.

All I can say is take a dose of international news every now and again.

http://www.kqed.org/programs/program-landing.jsp?progID=RD7

- posted by k @ 1:53 AM